Inside technology.

Book Reveals Bell Cut Off True Phone Inventor In Race To Patent Office

February 12, 2001|By Jon Van and Christine Tatum.

If Alexander Graham Bell's patent attorneys had been timid, or even only mildly aggressive, Ma Bell might be Ma Gray instead. It seems that Elisha Gray has a more valid claim as telephone inventor than does Bell.

The fascinating story of how Bell obtained patents and laid the groundwork for a telephone monopoly that persists today is told in the new book "The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876" by A. Edward Evenson, a semiretired engineer who lives in Rolling Meadows.

Evenson's story revolves around the fact that Bell and Gray filed their first claims to a telephone patent on Feb. 14, 1876, with Gray filing hours before Bell.

In those days workers in the Patent Office didn't time stamp documents as they received them, and underhanded tactics on Bell's behalf carried the day in a decade of bitter patent battles in court that followed. Evenson shows that Bell's lawyers relied on help from Patent Office officials to give the inaccurate impression that Bell's patent papers were filed first.

How Evenson came to research the matter and write a book is an interesting tale itself.

"It started with what appeared to me to be a typo," he said. "I was reading an account published in 1879 that said Bell filed for the patent on Feb. 14, 1876, and was awarded a patent three weeks later.

"I thought that had to be wrong. You just don't get a patent in three weeks. I hold six patents myself, and the process takes months or even years."

Evenson began researching the matter at the Chicago Public Library and found that Bell's patent was awarded in three weeks. In fact, Bell had five patents awarded just days or weeks after filing.

Although the Patent Office then did move somewhat more quickly than now, the speed was still phenomenal. Evenson found that Thomas Edison, a Bell contemporary, often waited eight or 10 months for a patent award.

Evenson called the Patent Office and eventually got copies of the original patent records from the National Archives. The irregularities he found led him to Washington to look through more original documents.

Evenson's book is published by McFarland & Co., which specializes in selling books to libraries, but it is also available on the Web from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and others.

An obituary in the Scientific American for Gray, who died Feb. 2, 1901, suggested that one day Gray would be recognized as the telephone's true inventor. Evenson said that with his book, he hopes that may yet happen.

More juice: Elmhurst-based Double-Time Corp., hopes to live up to its name with a new version of its PowerClip cellular upgrade. The device, which connects to the phone and its original battery, was built for Motorola's popular i1000 and i1000plus wireless phones.

Double-Time's market research turned up plenty of users who loved the phones' array of nifty functions, including Internet access, digital two-way radio transmission and speakerphone capability, but were disappointed by their fast-draining batteries, said Christine Stannard, vice president of marketing for Double-Time.

The new PowerClip weighs only 2 ounces and more than doubles users' talk time between battery recharges, Stannard said.

"And just in case anyone's worried, we wouldn't have done this unless we were sure Motorola was going to continue making these phones for a while," she said. The device retails for $59.

Good tech-keeping: The Computer Technology Industry Association has unveiled a seal of approval aimed at helping consumers identify reputable technology service providers.

The group hopes the mark will make it easier for people to avoid getting burned by tech companies that aren't capable of living up to their promises. Moreover, small businesses will get a chance to prove that they're just as reliable as their large competitors, said Michael Booth, the association's global marketing director.

"We are pushing for an internationally accepted standard that levels the playing field and minimizes risk for everyone who's on it," Booth said.

The validation, called Xspertise, will be awarded to service providers that pass an independent, on-site audit of their technology and business procedures. Yearly audits will be performed by Clicksure, a British company specializing in Internet service audits, and will include reviews of a service provider's security, customer service, technology back-up and bandwidth.

All tech service providers--including those offering Internet applications, hosting, management and network support--are eligible to seek the association's seal of approval. Auditors will evaluate a business without regard for the brand of technology it uses, Booth said. Businesses will pay to be audited, and those passing inspection will be included in a free online database.

Prime takeover: Chicago-based Prime Advantage Corp., an e-commerce services and marketplace for industrial manufacturers, has acquired Logistics Management of Fairhaven, Mass. Details of the cash-and-stock purchase were undisclosed. Logistics Management, a profitable B2B marketplace for the freight industry, conducted $90 million in transactions last year, and offers Prime Advantage 3,000 new customers, said Ralph Tschantz, Prime Advantage's senior vice president of marketing. Getting together: Friday is the deadline for Chicago technology start-ups that would like to make deals at the Fifth Annual Partnering Conference, held by the Chicago Software Association. The conference will be March 22 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. People interested in participating can get more information at www.csa.org.